When Valve laid out a range of performance tiers for the 300 Steam Machine prototypes it would be sending to beta testers, the company was clear that other hardware makers would be revealing their own designs for SteamOS-powered gaming rigs in the future. Custom PC maker iBuyPower has now become the first company to unveil a prototype for one of those designs, laying out a $499 white box with a GPU that’s comparable or slightly better than those found in the recently launched PS4 and Xbox One.

The Verge reports that iBuyPower’s console-sized prototype box ("bigger than a PlayStation 4 but smaller than Microsoft's Xbox One"), which it plans to sell next year, includes an AMD Radeon R9 270 graphics card. That card was launched earlier this month at a starting price of $179, and it's intended to replace AMD’s 7850 and 7870 GPUs—close architectural relatives to those inside Microsoft's and Sony’s nearest consoles.

The R9 270 does deliver slightly better benchmark performance at a lower cost than its predecessor line. Aside from the GPU, though, we don’t know much about the core specs of iBuyPower’s prototype, except for the vague notion of a “multi-core AMD CPU.” The precise speed and architecture of that CPU, in addition to the size and speed of the RAM in the system, will be crucial to how its final pixel-pushing power measures up.

With a $499 total asking price, we probably shouldn’t expect too much from those unknown specs, especially considering that the price includes one of Valve’s new handheld Steam Controllers and a 500GB hard drive. Then again, the SteamOS-powered box doesn’t need to make room in the budget for a Windows license, saving money but also limiting the system's native out-of-the-box library of games to those that run on Steam for Linux.

In any case, the iBuyPower says its box will run those Steam for Linux games at 1080p resolution and 60 frames per second, which seems like a safe bet given the GPU. Even with the limited details we have so far, it’s interesting to see a hardware maker aiming to match newly launched consoles in both price and general power level with its first SteamOS prototype.

Kyle Orland
Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area. Emailkyle.orland@arstechnica.com//Twitter@KyleOrl

192 Reader Comments

However, if this is running native the SteamOS, it won't run a lot of your Steam library games just yet, unless there are Linux binaries available. You're either going to have to stream from a windows box, or Valve is going to have to leverage something like WINE to run those preexisting games for you.

I would like to see the streaming ability before judging this to be "limited". If it can stream Windows games quickly and seamlessly then this is a spectacular option, even if restricted to Linux-based SteamOS.

Interesting specs, it's exactly what you'd want in an entry-level gaming PC. I'm interested to see if people buy these. As for me (and I'm sure lots of you) I already have hardware I can re-purpose if I want a Steam Machine so I see big potential here. Open platforms are great for us enthusiasts.

I would like to see the streaming ability before judging this to be "limited". If it can stream Windows games quickly and seamlessly then this is a spectacular option, even if restricted to Linux-based SteamOS.

Streaming seems cool, but that means you need to have a fully powered PC system somewhere else. Doesn't that kill the whole idea of it being price comparable to a console?

what does "console beater" mean exactly? Sells more units? Does more stuff? Has more games?

Since none of those are the case, and never will be, not sure how this thing holds any candle to the PS4 or xbox one...

I like steam, but for the forseable future, it isn't leaving my PC.

This is a PC. Its just running a separate OS. What this SteamOS and Steam Boxes are targeting is the market of gamers that want a powerful, up to date machine, decent graphics, and the ease of use that a console gives you.

If Valve can succeed in placing enough of these boxes and operating systems in the market, it'd give a reason for proper ports to the PC again instead of these cross platform games on the PC where it still tells you to "Press X" on the computer.

I would like to see the streaming ability before judging this to be "limited". If it can stream Windows games quickly and seamlessly then this is a spectacular option, even if restricted to Linux-based SteamOS.

Streaming seems cool, but that means you need to have a fully powered PC system somewhere else. Doesn't that kill the whole idea of it being price comparable to a console?

To some I'm sure it does, but to others who have a gaming PC in the den and are considering buying a console for the living room, being able to stream their gaming PC to their living room via a steam machine could be an attractive option. $499 is pretty steep for that option alone tho. If Steam OS gets enough support it would make that price a lot easier to swallow.

I'm more interested in streaming to a laptop so I can game outside in my garden, on low powered hardware.

I would like to see the streaming ability before judging this to be "limited". If it can stream Windows games quickly and seamlessly then this is a spectacular option, even if restricted to Linux-based SteamOS.

Streaming seems cool, but that means you need to have a fully powered PC system somewhere else. Doesn't that kill the whole idea of it being price comparable to a console?

To some I'm sure it does, bit to others who have a gaming PC in the den and are considering buying a console for the living room, being able to stream their gaming PC to their living room via a steam machine could be an attractive option. $499 is pretty steal for that option alone tho. If Steam OS gets enough support it would make that price a lot wiser to swallow.

Logged in just to say this. It's as if people are assuming that nobody owns a PC already. Sure, it might not be a top-of-the-line machine, but if you have Steam games already on it, chances are its good enough to bridge the gap until developers start releasing linux versions.

I would like to see the streaming ability before judging this to be "limited". If it can stream Windows games quickly and seamlessly then this is a spectacular option, even if restricted to Linux-based SteamOS.

Streaming seems cool, but that means you need to have a fully powered PC system somewhere else. Doesn't that kill the whole idea of it being price comparable to a console?

Exactly. Instead of occupying the PC, you can now occupy 2 PCs and the TV. And that $500 "Steam Machine" is actually a $500 accessory to your $<insert your price> already existing rig. So convenient.

Hmmm...IBuyPower. My last rig came from them and I'd hesitate to buy from them again. On the plus side they did replace the DOA video card pretty quickly...and a couple weeks later they replaced the hard drive after it kicked it. Those aside, it's been stable. And they replaced their junky keyboard with a broken key without requiring me to send the old one back.

Biggest thing holding back SteamOS is AAA games. No AAA games, its going to be hard to push.

Well, there are a few fairly major games (Metro: Last Light, for example), and they're trying to convince more publishers, as well as porting their own games. It might take a while, but I think there's at least a chance of success.

Looks pretty awesome. If they can find a way to get games (big budget games, not just indies) to run on Linux I will def pick one up. Unfortunately that feels like a huge "If."

Is the PS4's OS a linux variant? If so it doesn't sound like a stretch to port to SteamOS...

Both consoles this generation are AMD APUs, the PS4 I know is an x86-64, and I'd assume the XBO is as well (unless someone can point me to something saying otherwise). That should make porting easier, in addition to console modding... (look to the first Xbox as an example).

However, if this is running native the SteamOS, it won't run a lot of your Steam library games just yet, unless there are Linux binaries available. You're either going to have to stream from a windows box, or Valve is going to have to leverage something like WINE to run those preexisting games for you.

Which would be sweet.

What would the performance implications be for them to do something like use WINE? I'm a very windows oriented person so I really don't know. I know I always hear that emulation is kind of intensive.

However, if this is running native the SteamOS, it won't run a lot of your Steam library games just yet, unless there are Linux binaries available. You're either going to have to stream from a windows box, or Valve is going to have to leverage something like WINE to run those preexisting games for you.

Which would be sweet.

What would the performance implications be for them to do something like use WINE? I'm a very windows oriented person so I really don't know. I know I always hear that emulation is kind of intensive (even though I realize this is a system emulation when most of the time you hear it talked about in terms of hardware).

WINE is not an emulator (W.I.N.E)!

But to answer your question, it works quite well. I'm running Mint as my daily OS, and I play nearly everything on it. I have a W7 partition for playing a few games @ 5760x1080 when I want, I haven't spent the time setting up spanning on my Linux environment yet.

A lot of games work out of the box with WINE, and honestly I see slight FPS improvements** in some games that use DirectX under WINE compared to W7. World of Warcraft, for example, runs an average of 10-15FPS faster under Mint/WINE than W7.

I really kind of excited by this, although I don't particularly like the color. White is just not my thing. But eh, that's just cosmetic. If SteamOS and Steam Machines succeed and look like they are even marginally close to being comparable in sales and usage as the PS4 and XBONE then I would be very scared if I was one of those manufacturers.

Imagine, if you will, instead of games being designed for MS or Sony and their proprietary console OSes that instead they are designed for Linux, or even also as Linux. That's a very good situation for Valve, game developers, and the Linux community alike since it would have a wide-ranging effect on how game development proceeds in the future, as well as the OS market in general.

I'm not saying this will happen, but it could very well be a major game changer when it comes to all kinds of software development.

What would the performance implications be for them to do something like use WINE? I'm a very windows oriented person so I really don't know. I know I always hear that emulation is kind of intensive.

Edit: shortened for clarity.

Good thing that [W]ine [I]s [N]ot and [E]mulator.

Performance varies,it's not ever going to support the latest DirectX, and normally getting any game to work well enough to play requires a lot of tinkering. But in this case with a stable, known platform to work from, I suppose Valve could put some effort into building specific profiles for Windows only games.

Not a bad deal really. Rather put in an i5 for $100 more and I would consider it. Wonder if the box will allow ease of upgrading.

Downside is the life of this is probably 1-4 years vs the 5-7 of consoles, in keeping up with 1080p 60fps high settings.

Eh? It would be the same longevity as consoles if it has the same hardware, right? They don't have any unorthodox hardware that will incur a performance hit when games are ported; it's walled garden PCs to standard PCs.

But I'm not sure if hardware from "iBuyPower" will hold up for 7 years, though.

This is a PC. Its just running a separate OS. What this SteamOS and Steam Boxes are targeting is the market of gamers that want a powerful, up to date machine, decent graphics, and the ease of use that a console gives you.

What would the performance implications be for them to do something like use WINE? I'm a very windows oriented person so I really don't know. I know I always hear that emulation is kind of intensive.

Edit: shortened for clarity.

Good thing that [W]ine [I]s [N]ot and [E]mulator.

Performance varies,it's not ever going to support the latest DirectX, and normally getting any game to work well enough to play requires a lot of tinkering. But in this case with a stable, known platform to work from, I suppose Valve could put some effort into building specific profiles for Windows only games.

Except steam boxes aren't going to be stable known platforms. Valve has said there will be boxes with different gpu vendors and different performance levels of those cards. Due to those variables Wine or a Wine like program is not an option and it comes up in every Steambox thread. If you want console like performance for the same price you also can't have extra unnecessary software layers.

This is why Valve is pushing the windows to SteamOS streaming. It is their best solution to the lack of ports at launch before they can get a big enough user base for other publishers to take them seriously. Getting them on board will make or break the platform long term.

Not a bad deal really. Rather put in an i5 for $100 more and I would consider it. Wonder if the box will allow ease of upgrading.

Downside is the life of this is probably 1-4 years vs the 5-7 of consoles, in keeping up with 1080p 60fps high settings.

Eh? It would be the same longevity as consoles if it has the same hardware, right? They don't have any unorthodox hardware that will incur a performance hit when games are ported; it's walled garden PCs to standard PCs.

But I'm not sure if hardware from "iBuyPower" will hold up for 7 years, though.

Not that standard console hardware does either.

I got a 4870 in 2008 I think for $250-$300. I can not imagine that card running as well as the 360/ps3 version of BF4 or CoD. I have a 6850 now with the wolfdale core 2 duo, which gets decent fps on 1080p medium settings for games 2-3 years old. 360 and PS3 were out 2005 and 2006.

This is a PC. Its just running a separate OS. What this SteamOS and Steam Boxes are targeting is the market of gamers that want a powerful, up to date machine, decent graphics, and the ease of use that a console gives you.

SteamOS makes it as much of a PC as the Xbox One is a PC....

Xbone doesn't have configurable hardware and an open software platform (actually I'm not sure about that. will people be able to put firefox for example on SteamOS?). Either way configurable hardware will allow for people to buy as frequently and at whatever price-point works for them. Which makes it more PC and xbone.

Maybe I am missing something, but is this a user-replaceable independent video card?

The size of the box would allow for one with a riser card.

Also, middle three links are not working and why did you guys pick the black/white photo from the Verge instead of the color photo of it turned on? Doing iBuyPower a favor by hiding their gaudy glowing design?

Not a bad deal really. Rather put in an i5 for $100 more and I would consider it. Wonder if the box will allow ease of upgrading.

Downside is the life of this is probably 1-4 years vs the 5-7 of consoles, in keeping up with 1080p 60fps high settings.

Eh? It would be the same longevity as consoles if it has the same hardware, right? They don't have any unorthodox hardware that will incur a performance hit when games are ported; it's walled garden PCs to standard PCs.

But I'm not sure if hardware from "iBuyPower" will hold up for 7 years, though.

Not that standard console hardware does either.

I got a 4870 in 2008 I think for $250-$300. I can not imagine that card running as well as the 360/ps3 version of BF4 or CoD. I have a 6850 now with the wolfdale core 2 duo, which gets decent fps on 1080p medium settings for games 2-3 years old. 360 and PS3 were out 2005 and 2006.

I ran a 4890 up until very recently because I gamed on a 720p projector. The lower resolution makes a huge difference in performance and it definitely performs as well as the PS3 on the same games (I wound up with a copy of Arkham City on both, it runs better on the 4890 at 720p).

I'm still worried about the life of the hardware though. Is there decent cooling? A decent PSU? That stuff could mean the difference between a 1 year life and 5.

The Linux requirement will certainly limit the opening game library to just a few, and that's a big disadvantage to anyone buying this as their first powerful computer. To be fair, both the Xbox One and the Playstation 4 only have a handful of only half-interesting games at the moment too.

I really think Valve would benefit greatly through some sort of WINE integration. They can't make it too official, since WINE support, while good, is never an absolute guarantee. However, maybe they could convince game developers to re-release their games under a WINE layer, and have that count as a poor man's "port". I understand that's actually half of what happens for Mac ports right now.

This is a PC. Its just running a separate OS. What this SteamOS and Steam Boxes are targeting is the market of gamers that want a powerful, up to date machine, decent graphics, and the ease of use that a console gives you.

SteamOS makes it as much of a PC as the Xbox One is a PC....

Xbone doesn't have configurable hardware and an open software platform (actually I'm not sure about that. will people be able to put firefox for example on SteamOS?). Either way configurable hardware will allow for people to buy as frequently and at whatever price-point works for them. Which makes it more PC and xbone.

Currently, Steam heavily uses browser re-skinning, or sometimes, redirecting entirely into a browser, so a browser of some variety is sure to be included in a basic steam OS install. To more directly answer your question, though no-one knows for sure yet, but every indication that I've seen is that this will be a linux distro optimized for controller input, so there shouldn't be any technical hurdles, barring the lack of a controller interface for any other software you may care to install. It'll be interesting to see if an Origin client for Linux shows up eventually.

The Linux requirement will certainly limit the opening game library to just a few, and that's a big disadvantage to anyone buying this as their first powerful computer. To be fair, both the Xbox One and the Playstation 4 only have a handful of only half-interesting games at the moment too.

I really think Valve would benefit greatly through some sort of WINE integration. They can't make it too official, since WINE support, while good, is never an absolute guarantee. However, maybe they could convince game developers to re-release their games under a WINE layer, and have that count as a poor man's "port". I understand that's actually half of what happens for Mac ports right now.

Depends on your game list. I have some 40+ games on my steam list that support Linux (a lot more if we count Mac which is a stones throw away from Linux) so I would have a pretty good library from day one. As for WINE there are some steam games that use it already as well as some commercial games that use it officially, so its not out of the realm of possibilities it just needs more love from developers.